Embracing Imperfection

The idea of perfection is subjective. It depends entirely on an individual’s ideas and expectations. It also suggests that there is no room for improvement. Constantly we aim to reach this state. We tweak recipes, rewrite articles, do internal work on ourselves among other things. But there’s something many of us may be missing about the inherent state of imperfection we try to so hard to overcome. That is, It presents opportunities for growth in our vision, our wisdom, and our ability. Without this space to expand ourselves and try new things, what would we have to offer our audience?

Lyrics from the 1992 Leonard Cohen song “Anthem” are an ode to imperfection – “Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” These words should serve as a reminder that perfection should not be the goal for our art because the good stuff, your message, is found in imperfection. That’s where the light from your story shines through. The figurative crack in your bell is where your authenticity is found. Read on to see how you can begin to embrace imperfection.

Tell the green-eyed monster to sit down.

Unfortunately, many of us have suffered from artist envy. We’ve compared our product to the next person’s and found more wrong with what we created than we could find right. “My blog design isn’t good enough.” “I only have a fraction of the followers she has.” “She’s more popular than I’ll ever be.” When we compare ourselves to others, we become frustrated, we forget our vision and purpose for creating, or we could find ourselves on the brink of giving up.

It’s all in how you look at things.

Please, don’t give up! Instead, shift your perspective. Understand that the pursuit of perfection blinds us to what we have and to what we really want. We may not have the ideal design we’ve been hoping for, a large number of followers, or enviable popularity, but we do have a vehicle to let our voices be heard. And, most importantly, we took the initiative to create it! We accepted the challenge to build it, improve it, and inspire our readers (and ourselves) along the way.

It’s a process. Embrace it.

Recognize that building a blog is a process. Each of us would benefit from slowing down and becoming cordial (if not friends) with it for it serves as our teacher. Within the process is where we learn more about ourselves and what we want. We may develop new ideas, or we could come across a new path that is ripe with opportunities we never considered before.

You have to be you.

Our audience appreciates authenticity, and authenticity is found in imperfection. Through our imperfections, our true stories can be shared, our raw emotions revealed, and an honest connection with our readers can be made. It doesn’t help us as writers to compare ourselves to other creators because our audience is not interested in carbon copies. Instead, we should affirm to allow our voices to be heard and our visions to be seen. We should make friends with the process, and allow it to lead us to heights we’ve never dreamed of before.

Have you begun to embrace imperfection? Share with others how you are doing it.